Difficult
by Kylara Kitsune
Summary: This is the most difficult thing I've ever had to write, and that includes all those Potions essays for Professor Snape. Hermione's writing a very important letter.


**AN: For ages, I've been unable to write anything Harry Potter-related. Then this came to me. Perhaps now I'll actually be able to find the inspiration to finish "Hidden Passions" (the last chapter of which has been half-written for weeks). As ever, I don't own the characters. Prompt 81 from the 100 challenge - "pen and paper".**

This is the most difficult thing I've ever had to write, and that includes all those Potions essays for Professor Snape. I think it's because I won't be here when you read it – that it's the last thing I'll ever be able to say to you.

Once upon a time, three children believed in happy endings. They knew evil, of course, they'd fought it countless times, but not once did they ever believe that evil would win. It never had in the stories, after all. However, this wasn't a story, it was real life. Reality is never the same as what you read in the novels. The evil they faced, known as Lord Voldemort, had almost been defeated once, but he rose again, years later. Those three children, who went by the names Harry, Ron and Hermione, were forced to grow up faster than they would otherwise have done. This was because Harry, the "Boy who Lived", was considered by many to be the saviour of the wizarding world, and there was no way his friends would leave him to face that alone.

The first time, they prevented Lord Voldemort acquiring the Philosopher's Stone. In their second year at Hogwarts, they discovered the Chamber of Secrets, and learned about the monster dwelling within. The following year, Wormtail escaped to rejoin his fallen Master, who rose again in their fourth year. You know all of this already, and what came after. I'm rambling now, instead of getting to the point.

The point I'm trying to make is that good doesn't always triumph over evil. It didn't, and I can't think of anything else we could have done to prevent the situation we're now in.

You know that I owe my life to Draco Malfoy – if he hadn't defied Voldemort and apparated me away from that meeting I'd been spying on, I'd be dead by now. What you don't know, because it was safer not to tell anyone, was that he stayed with me for the next six months. Most of the healing potions we all used during that time were brewed by him. Surprised? Not as much as you will be when you hear what else he spent his time doing. I'll spare you the graphic details, but know that he and I were together in the same way that Bill and Fleur are, or any other couple you can think of. I don't care that he used to be a Death Eater – he saved my life and turned his back on everything he'd ever known and believed in to do it. That's more than good enough for me.

It wasn't until six months later that the Death Eaters found him. I'd been on a mission with the two of you – I returned to find my hideout completely destroyed, Draco's mutilated body lying next to the cauldron he'd been using, and the Dark Mark floating above him.

Since then, our situation his just become steadily worse. We're all on the run now, those few of us that are still, somehow, alive. Have you seen what they do when they capture a member of the Order of the Phoenix? I have. I would rather end it myself than be subjected to that. Besides, what's the point of carrying on when your reasons for living no longer exist? We aren't going to win this war, there simply aren't enough of us left. The other reason? I'm talking about Draco – I fell in love with him, and nothing has been the same since the day he was murdered.

If this was a fairy tale, he wouldn't be dead, just in hiding, and I'd find him. Then, maybe, all of us together could come up with a way to win this war and put the world to rights again.

But it isn't a story, and fairytale endings aren't real. We found out the hard way, those children who grew up too fast.

………………

Hermione signed her name at the bottom of the page, and put her pen down. She'd started using muggle writing implements after realising that they were much easier to transport, and much more convenient, when you're trying to scribble notes quickly. Angrily, she wiped away tears before they could fall and smudge her letter. She hadn't been lying when she'd said it was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.

She fumbled with the chain around her neck, removing the ring from it, which she then slipped onto her left hand. Draco had given it to her - it had been his grandmother's engagement ring, which he'd inherited – and promised that if they were both still alive at the end of it all, he'd ask her to marry him. It felt right to wear it for this.

Her owl took the letter in its beak, flying off to find Harry and Ron. Wherever they were, they'd get it soon. Raising her wand, she took a deep breath and looked in the cracked, dirty mirror that hung on the wall.

"Avada Kedavra."

**AN: I shouldn't be writing fics, I'm in the middle of my finals and should be revising for them. I have been revising - it's boring. Leave me a review, cheer me up.**


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